There are a great variety of issues I’d like to blog about today, from the George Zimmerman indictment to Hilary Rosen’s apparent, to borrow language used by the administration and their allies in the legacy media, War on Stay-at-Home Moms (perhaps of particular interest to our readers given that she’s a lesbian, attached to to the former head of HRC), but, am quite busy right now (to be explained in my next post).

I’m actually writing this post from the Sharing Shelf in Port Chester, New York, a charity my sister founded. For our conservative readers, you should donate because she’s my sister and they do good work. And for our liberal readers, you should donate because my sister doesn’t share my politics and they do good work. Click here to support a group which recycles “gently used children’s clothing” and distributes them “directly to those in need”. (When you donate, please specify that it’s for the Sharing Shelf.)

There are three major problems with this approach, each of which merits a more in-depth exploration–and perhaps that will come out in the comments:

the public mood has changed in the past fifty years, with the American public more skeptical of the power of the government to do good.

government has grown by leaps and bounds since 1964, particularly as a result of that election and Americans don’t want it to grow any bigger; if anything they want to see it scaled back.

Barry Goldwater did a better job of criticizing why government was too big than in offering a positive vision of a world with smaller government. This time around, it’s the incumbent Democrat, not the out-of-power Republican, who is waging the more negative campaign.

Do hope in the future to back up each of those points with more links and greater elaboration.

32 Comments

“For our conservative readers, you should donate because she’s my sister and they do good work. And for our liberal readers, you should donate because my sister doesn’t share my politics and they do good work.”

I think you’re wrong regarding item 2 on your list. I think Americans don’t want to see government get bigger in general, but only as long as that doesn’t affect them individually. I see it as the same dynamic in which a voter says all incumbents should be voted out, except his or her incumbent. Now that the number of folks paying income taxes has dropped to a minority of the population, most folks get more than what they pay for. Why would you vote to change that?

Because they want big government to take care of them, but not everyone else. Everyone else is just a leech who need to pay their own way, but they’re just getting back what they’ve paid for. Just like how people want earmarks for pork-barrel spending taken away from all those other states, but want to keep the ‘community reinvestment’ that they can see has real benefits in their state.

They want the big government, but they don’t want the big taxes. That’s why the Laffer curve is so popular. More revenue for that big government and less taxes for the people getting it? If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

the president is bound and determined to run against Mitt Romney as if he were the “reincarnation of Barry Goldwater, an extremist extraordinaire both on the economy and foreign policy.”

Whose fault is that then? Possibly the Republican primary voters who were determined that their candidate had to be a Goldwater-style conservative despite being a moderate governor of Massachusetts up until a few years ago? He’s not a Goldwater conservative, but you’ve made him say that he is, and now you want the best of both worlds. You want him to say he’s like Barry Goldwater, but be seen as like Ronald Reagan, and that simply isn’t going to work.

Oh yeah, and newsflash. If he does get elected, you’re not getting either. You’re getting as disappointed as Obama’s supporters are right now, saddled with a weak moderate who still gets stereotyped as an extremist (as you can see is happening already) with people saying “Well how much more right-wing do you want than a man who said [Insert crazy thing you made Romney say in the primaries here]” even as you point out exactly how non-conservative he really is when in office. It will make no difference, and you’ll be doing it all again in 2016 too.

Actually, Serentiy, most conservatives won’t be disappointed when Romney governs as a moderate, because most of them are expecting him to. Well, maybe they’ll be disappointed, but they won’t be surprised.

As for Obama, do moderates hang around with people like Jeremiah Wright and Derrick Bell? No.

V the K, I do think Obama’s supporters are disappointed (at least the ones that don’t have any power, i.e. the naive “sheeple” that think progressivism is actually meant to make things better and isn’t just a power grab) because his progressive policies haven’t created the utopia they were supposed to.

Also, why I think progressives are so insistent that Obama is a moderate is so they can say that his policies would have created the utopia if they were farther left (that is, the reason they failed was because they were too moderate).

I don’t think Obama’s supporters are disappointed, I think they just like to whine.

Obama opponent tells Obama supporters how they feel. I forgot you were a telepath.

Blah blah blah, filibuster, nothing of note…

Gish gallop, not enough energy, screw it. Criticize away, I considered responding but I haven’t got all day.

The only thing he hasn’t done is confiscated the wealth of all the wealthy and semi-wealthy in America, and he’d made clear that’s very much on the agenda for the second term.

Of course, because he will have 100% control of congress and won’t have to deal with Republicans or conservative Democrats because he’ll abolish congress with his magical dictator powers that he will gain at the stroke of midnight on inauguration day if re-elected!

No matter how much you say it, it doesn’t become true. Obama remains a disappointment, progressives wanted much more out of him, and that’s my point. He failed to go far enough, yet you say he did go far enough, and further even than that! He’s a Marxist! Guess what Romney will be? He’ll be a fascist. He’ll have given you everything you wanted and more, no matter how much you know it’s untrue because the sword cuts both ways.

I can’t even understand how you fail to see this, it happened under Bush, I remember it very clearly. Am I the only one here with a long-term memory? Am I the only one who actually understands partisan politics? It’s like I’m in the bloody Twilight Zone or something.

Actually, Serentiy, most conservatives won’t be disappointed when Romney governs as a moderate, because most of them are expecting him to. Well, maybe they’ll be disappointed, but they won’t be surprised.

Like hell you will. Even Democrats who at the time supported Barack Obama despite actually looking into his rather unremarkable, moderate record and concluding he would not be the ‘progressive messiah’ after all still find themselves disappointed. You think you’re prepared, you think reality can’t surprise you. In that case, you’ve got one hell of a shock waiting for you if he actually wins.

Also, why I think progressives are so insistent that Obama is a moderate is so they can say that his policies would have created the utopia if they were farther left (that is, the reason they failed was because they were too moderate).

What was Bush then? Too conservative? If he’d been more liberal everything would’ve worked out?

Of course not, he was too moderate for you. If he’d been further right, things would’ve been much better! Every political base thinks this about every mainstream leader, what’s sad is that you seem to think your discovery of this time-honoured rule is in some way innovative when it’s the oldest and most basic political rule ever.

Like hell you will. Even Democrats who at the time supported Barack Obama despite actually looking into his rather unremarkable, moderate record and concluding he would not be the ‘progressive messiah’ after all still find themselves disappointed. You think you’re prepared, you think reality can’t surprise you. In that case, you’ve got one hell of a shock waiting for you if he actually wins.

Oh, the trauma of being a revolutionary bomb thrower who wanted to see Utopia imposed on the monied masters who are the targeted “cause” of preventing social justice, equality and egalitarianism.

What Pomposity fails to state is that “Progressives” want to supplant and conservatives want to restore.

Pomposity posted a long list of “failures” Obama has piled up in carrying out at least part of the “progressive” agenda. Conservatives wonder why each and every one of those items can not be openly debated and resolved in a Constitutional manner.

Pomposity wants Utopia imposed by the dear leader. Conservatives want the battle of ideas to be won or lost the old fashioned way. Pomposity wants the dictatorship of the proletariat to take hold at the bottom and the “reform” to be imposed on the top.

To compare Pomposity’s childish faith in hope and change with how the Conservatives are going to react to Romney is unworkable.

Romney has a long record and he will speak in clear terms. He is not a figment of anyone’s imagination where he panders and demagogues among styrofoam columns and women faint and Jessie Jackson tears up and Sean Penn goes all gooey. No jutting jaw, no halo light, no Edward Bernays style selling of the messiah come to lead us. We have all seen the production that brought us The Won and it is now revolting.

Nope. Romney is up against the hard core, cigar chomping world of doers and achievers who want their economy back, their entrepreneurial rights back, the entitlement deficits made sound, the government deficits brought under control, the sovereignty of the United States assured and the government to concentrate on what it does best and to get out of the way of Main Street.

Pomposity’s “reality” of messiah failure can not be compared to the conservative’s “reality” of turning the economy and the government around and getting back on track the old Constitutional way.

For Pomposity, the “reality” is an ever increasing government where every little wrinkle of social justice is ironed out and every little inequality is addressed and mosquitoes don’t bite and rats wear tuxedos.

For conservatives, “reality” is where you are free to achieve the rewards of hard work and you pay for a government that performs the fundamental societal needs efficiently and effectively. (Manage the union of the states, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and all those who come after us by obeying and upholding the Constitution of the United States of America and not viewing it as a tired old document unsuitable as a model for Egypt or any other aspiring nation.)

These two “realities” are a stark contrast, not a comparison. Conservatives lament what is being lost while Progressives flash mob and bitch about the haul.

Like hell you will. Even Democrats who at the time supported Barack Obama despite actually looking into his rather unremarkable, moderate record and concluding he would not be the ‘progressive messiah’ after all still find themselves disappointed. You think you’re prepared, you think reality can’t surprise you. In that case, you’ve got one hell of a shock waiting for you if he actually wins.

As I said, conservatives might be disappointed at a Romney presidency, but they won’t be surprised.

Of course not, [Bush] was too moderate for you. If he’d been further right, things would’ve been much better! Every political base thinks this about every mainstream leader

I hear a lot of praise for Ronald Reagan. Although I wasn’t born yet, I hear the 80’s were quite prosperous. As for Bush, he was quite successful with regards to the war (from a conservative perspective), and some of his policies did create (or contribute to) a period of economic prosperity. Where conservatives generally fault him is the explosion of debt that occurred during his presidency. So, in that respect, he wasn’t conservative enough. And, obviously, that debt is a problem (one that wouldn’t exist if he had been more conservative and vetoed some of congress’s spending).

The progressive socialist troll has offered a list of Obama’s failures which disappoint:

Single-payer healthcare: Guess who the “single-payer” is? That’s right! Only those who pays taxes. Guess who the free-loaders are? Everyone who does not pay taxes and all those who break the bank with countless heart transplants, multiple livers, high risk life-styles, rare diseases, etc.

However, it is necessary for the single-payer health care panel of experts to manage who gets health care and how much health care a recipient will get. The committee can always send individuals who have cost too much or been around too long or show evidence of becoming too expensive down the hall to the deep sleep therapy chamber from which no one returns. Egalitarianism: everyone gets a “fair” share and no more, unless the person is “vital” to the regime.

Campaign finance reform: The election process is corrupted by special interest money. No candidate can be permitted to spend more than “X” dollars of cash from any source. No candidate can be supported in any manner by the media, organizations, individuals, hand printed posters, bumper stickers, word of mouth, sign language, sky writing, knowing winks, barter, nuance, intimidation, body language or talking parakeet.

Once the cash is gone, the candidate is through and locked away until election day.

See how it works?

The rest of the list:

Reinstatement of Glass-Steagall
Buffett rule
End of the Bush Tax Cuts
More progressive tax system
End of DOMA
Judicial and prison reform
Medicianal Marijuana
End of the War on Drugs
Reform of Patriot Act
End of indefinite detention
Closure of Guantanamo Bay Detention Center
Total reinstatement of habeas corpus
Actual military spending cuts
Extension of payroll tax to all income

Quote: “Single-payer health care is medical care funded from a single insurance pool, run by the state.”

However, it is necessary for the single-payer health care panel of experts to manage who gets health care and how much health care a recipient will get. The committee can always send individuals who have cost too much or been around too long or show evidence of becoming too expensive down the hall to the deep sleep therapy chamber from which no one returns

You have that now, in the form of health insurance company departments designed specifically to figure out if there are any loopholes through which those who develop expensive, ongoing conditions can be denied coverage. It’s cheaper than paying up, and it’s entirely legal since they’re just exercising contractual rights, but people still die.

Also, the idea of rationing being something specific to government-run healthcare? Guess what, every insurer does the same thing, they’d be bankrupt otherwise. Or is is just that it’s moral for an insurer to engage in rationing to remain profitable but immoral for a government program to engage in rationing to remain financially viable? To the people not getting healthcare, I don’t think it makes much difference who’s denying it them.

Egalitarianism: everyone gets a “fair” share and no more, unless the person is “vital” to the regime.

A comparison to Zimbabwe and North Korea? How are you feeding this troll? With your own excrement?

Campaign finance reform: The election process is corrupted by special interest money.

Pretty much, that’s 95% of the problem with modern politics. The alternative? Taxpayer funding of elections.

Yep, you’re screwed.

Do Democrats ever have a solution that isn’t “Create a Government bureaucracy and raise taxes to fund it?”

Do Republicans ever have a solution that isn’t “Cut government spending, cut taxes, and hope the free market will fill in the gaps”?

Of course you would say that’s the correct solution to any number of problems. Which makes your statement self-refuting. If one solution is correct solution to several problems, then what’s wrong with suggesting it as the solution to each of those problems?

An “insurance pool” is but one possible single-payer “solution.” That is to say: the definition of “single-payer=insurance pool” is NOT the only meaning. The actual single payer is most likely to be the government which operates a grand scale Medicare/Medicaid system for the entire population, immigrants, undocumented residents, droppers in, and passers by. The fund comes from an inefficient payroll deduction, voluntary compliance, pixie dust and the full faith and credit of the US.

When Obama blithely mandates that pre-existing conditions be covered at no penalty to the policy holder or that contraceptives be provided at the “sole expense” of the insurance provider, only an idiot understands that as being “free.”

Only an idiot believes that an insurance pool is a single payer that will provide what is needed, when it is needed and at basically no greater expense to anyone than the previous medical compensation scheme.

Obamacare is predicated on everyone being required to pay (taxed) the insurance pool premium resulting in a vast number of payers who will cost far less of the pool than they pay in and the resulting surplus will cover those who cost far more in medical services then their premium payments cover.

Meanwhile, deficits in the scheme are backed by the US Treasury in the same manner that Freddie and Fannie were backed by the suckers who pay taxes. Since 48% of the potential income tax payers pay no income tax, these burdens fall on 52% who do.

Furthermore, it is highly likely that the 48% who pay no income tax will be “waived” for the insurance premium (tax) resulting in the 52% who do pay income tax picking up the premiums of those who get waivers.

This single-payer insurance pool is yet another government Ponzi scheme to get wealth transfer in the form of medical welfare.

There are other options and solutions. But, since Obamacare was never discussed or even available for study until well after its apparition was whisked through the keyholes of arcane secret doors, we can not compare it with other plans.

The government that robs Peter to pay Paul will have the eternal gratitude of Paul. Welfare recipients want more of other people’s money and health care is one of the great sources of heart-strings tugging sympathy.

The problem is that the US has no shortage of quality health care for anyone who needs it. That is not to say that reforms are unnecessary, but it is to say that Obamacare is a government grab to take over and control a huge segment of the economy. At the very least, controlling a person’s access to medical care is a fairly fundamental power grab on life and liberty.

Suppose you present yourself with the third round of STD’s? Suppose you present yourself with a fourth abortion? Why should the computer not spot you as the high risk taker that you are and report you to the social workers who work out an individualized social justice plan for main streaming you and getting you off welfare and into the taxpayer column so the government can grow even larger?

Would you be satisfied if a fascist government were to deny you health benefits because of your drug use? Suppose you present yourself for emergency treatment and a quick test sends you to the gulag and reprogramming.

This whole Progressive social Darwinsim based on a beneficent government and a altruistic bureaucracy is mind boggling to me. It is the oxymoron of libertarianism wedded to government mandate. How hippies, freethinkers, Bohemians, occupiers, new age counter culture adherents and other brandishers of psychobabble can ever fall dependent on the good will and forward thinking of the government is astounding.

Are you people so without personal foundation, footing and sense of self-worth that you must enslave yourselves to the impossible notion of the kindness of government and the worthiness of an efficient and caring nanny state?

If there is such a place, why the heck don’t you all live there? Is it Sweden? Can’t you tell your welfare people that you will move there if they will pay the way? It would save your government one Hell of a lot of money to send you first class on a one-way luxury cruise of your dreams than to have you hanging around pulling at the government teat for the rest of your days.

What could ever satisfy you? Really! There will always be somebody who doesn’t think you need some extra dole. You will always be scrapping for more. Why in the world do you think you deserve all that conceited attention? What have you produced that makes you so valuable to the general society?

Would you be satisfied if a fascist government were to deny you health benefits because of your drug use?

Isn’t that the plan of Republican governors mandating drug testing for welfare recipients?

If there is such a place, why the heck don’t you all live there?

Well I for one do. United Kingdom, National Health Service. All things considered, I don’t think there’s any other country I’d want to live in.

What could ever satisfy you?

Well this whole tangent has been one long attempt to make strawmen of progressivism and I don’t see that it’s in anyway productive. It might make you feel better, but this is now boring and I’ve no intention of going further down this path now.

I’ll leave you to have the last word, since your ego clearly needs it.

Also, the idea of rationing being something specific to government-run healthcare? Guess what, every insurer does the same thing, they’d be bankrupt otherwise. Or is is just that it’s moral for an insurer to engage in rationing to remain profitable but immoral for a government program to engage in rationing to remain financially viable?

Comment by Serenity — April 13, 2012 @ 8:50 pm – April 13, 2012

Yup.

For a very simple reason; you have a galaxy of choices for private insurers, and none at all for government insurance.

If you want other things covered, upgrade your policy or change companies. If you don’t like the service, upgrade your policy or change companies.

You don’t have a choice in a government system. If the government denies you care, there is nowhere else to turn. You have no other options. You are truly and completely denied care in a government system, whereas in our private system, you always have options.

A comparison to Zimbabwe and North Korea? How are you feeding this troll? With your own excrement?

See above. Your own Obama-esque British government is killing the elderly because they’re no longer vital to the regime.

Of course, you don’t care about that, Pomposity, because in your twisted little moocher psyche, those people don’t deserve to live. Therefore you have no problem with denying them health care, cutting off their options, and leaving them to die.

Pretty much, that’s 95% of the problem with modern politics. The alternative? Taxpayer funding of elections.

Which you disavow, Stupidity, as does your Barack Obama. So once again, both of you are hypocrites.

Do Republicans ever have a solution that isn’t “Cut government spending, cut taxes, and hope the free market will fill in the gaps”?

Yup.

But since the former works in 95% of the cases, it doesn’t have to be used very often.

Meanwhile, Pomposity, the reason you loathe that is because, without a government welfare check, you would starve to death because you’re too damn lazy.

Too bad. Why should people who will work be forced to pay for fat lazy pigs like yourself who won’t?

Well this whole tangent has been one long attempt to make strawmen of progressivism and I don’t see that it’s in anyway productive.

You can’t define “progressivism” in any manner to sell it to those who pay for it.

So, it is probably best that you slink away, again.

You troll in, throw your salmagundi around and strike poses as if you have something worthy to say, but you are just a street beggar making demands. All you need is a dog, dark glasses and a cane to make your pity me as victim costume complete.

Also, I frankly don’t see the progressive point of view being described here inaccurately at all. The progressive vision is a very, very large and powerful central Government, a private sector that is permitted to exist only under very heavy Government Regulation, personal liberties allowed only to the extent that they conform with progressive notions of political correctness, and a citizenry that is very heavily taxed to support the progressive state.

The useful idiots who support “progressivism” are entirely ill-prepared to debate the merits of “progressivism” and to represent the cause.

The “Progressive” politburo is smugly satisfied to release the bomb throwers, trolls, race-baiters, true-believers, occupiers, and members of the mob to carry the “message” that the power of crying victim trumps all reason.

So, Serenity, why is it preferable to be denied treatment by a public-paid bureaucrat rather than by a privately-paid bureaucrat?

If I didn’t already know better, I’d think you got it. It’s not. There’s no difference. Being denied treatment is equally bad regardless of who’s paying the bureaucrat. So where did the ‘government healthcare rationing’ rhetoric come from when healthcare is already being rationed by the private sector and why does it hold so much sway when it’s clearly not even a valid argument?

As NDT explained, and as you would understand were you not an insipid socialist git, within the private sector I have a choice of coverage, and I can purchase a policy that covers every contingency, or I can opt to pay less for coverage. I also have legal recourse when a company denies me coverage that is covered under the terms of my policy. In a system of state-run health care, I do not have that choice. And my ability to redress grievances in the legal sphere are limited by the fact that the health care bureaucracy and the legal system are part of the same state apparatus.

Not to mention that private companies have an incentive to keep costs down by not overpaying their bureaucrats. Governments just raise taxes. We also know that in Britain and Canada, the health care bureaucrats have treated themselves to plush, modern offices at taxpayer expense while hospitals fall to shambles and patients are forced to wait weeks or months for vital treatments.

IIRC, for the longest time in Canada (and I think GB) you weren’t allowed to pay for your own health care (thus the trend of the rich and famous coming to the US for treatment). In America, we can. Even if we have to arrange payment plans or cash in our 401Ks for our families (I’ve a friend who did just that).